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A regional charter school advocacy organization announced Tuesday a lawsuit against the New York State Education Department over what it believes is inequitable funding, particularly in the area of money for school buildings.

The lawsuit was organized by Northeast Charter Schools Network and filed on behalf of five upstate families, including one at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Charter School on Clifford Avenue in Rochester. It alleges charter school students receive only about 75 percent as much state and local money as their peers in publicly run schools.

A spokesman for the state education department declined to comment.

In New York, school districts send a per-pupil amount of money to charter schools based on a formula that divides the sum of most districtwide expenditures by the total number of students.

That state formula does not include any money for charters to buy, lease or renovate their buildings; they instead have to rearrange other funds to cover those costs. Charter schools are also ineligible for state building aid.

As a result, some schools have struggled to find suitable space. The newly opened Renaissance Academy, for instance, had to relocate to Greece after failing to find a building in the city.

“Charter schools in (New York) must further deplete their already unequal funds to pay real estate costs, imposing (a) significant financial burden on charter schools, instead of investing directly in students and classrooms,” the lawsuit states.

It also cites inequalities in the way the state formula is calculated, and asks for a revamped formula that allocates more money to charters.

The Rochester School District sends about $12,340 for each of the 4,110 city students attending a charter, plus additional costs for transportation, nurses and some other services. It adds up to about $55.6 million in the 2014-15 district budget, a number that has been rising steadily as more students defect from district schools to charter schools.

Maria Dalmau has two children, ages 4 and 8, attending Eugenio Maria de Hostos Charter School, and is part of the lawsuit against the state. Students at Eugenio Maria de Hostos outperformed district students by a wide margin on 2013-14 Common Core tests.

“This school is an amazing experience for my daughters. It’s the best thing that can happen to an inner-city child,” she said. “The teachers are amazing, they’re held accountable for their work and they’re very, very successful.”